Latest / Leaders In Payments / Going Local to Go Global with João Del Valle, EBANX | Episode 524

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Going Local to Go Global with João Del Valle, EBANX | Episode 524 · Leaders In Payments

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast, where we talk to sea-level leaders from across the payments lens page.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be discussing the products and services that impact the payments space today, as well as trends and predictions for the future of payments.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: We will also hear stories from our guests about their journeys to the topic.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Leaders in Payments Podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Greg Myers, and today's special guest is Joelle Davalli, the CEO of eBanks.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Joelle, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's a pleasure.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: So before we dive into your career, talk about the company, can you give us a quick snapshot of your personal background, maybe where you grew up, where you call home today, a few things like that?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm João.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Brazilian.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: I was born in the south of Brazil in a city called Curitiba.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: And this is where I live.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: This is where the main office of e-Bank still is.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: I studied computer science in college.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's my passion to this day.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then I left after college, I left to France to study for a year in Europe, computer science, computer software.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Came home, but then went back abroad and lived for three years in Mozambique in Africa, doing software development there, some government projects.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: That was a really nice experience to get more exposure and live like a local in some of these places.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: That international perspective, I think it was something really valuable.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then went on in the tech career, and we co-founded e-Banks a few years later.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: So had a career in corporate technology before founding the company.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe walk us through why did you start e-Banks?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Used to work with payments in the past, local payments in Brazil, technical integrations, like bank transfer, boletos, cards.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: And we use it to have demand from foreign companies to accept boletos, accept cards here in Brazil.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: And one of my co-founders had a different company that was working with international businesses and they were looking for a technical solution.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we merged both needs so that we had demand from international merchants willing to accept payments in Brazil, but we didn't have a clue about how to operationalize that, but we had the technology.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: And my two co-founders, Alphonse and Wagner, they were working in international markets, like remittance models and so on.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: So we merged both things.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: So we had the demand, the technology, and the business model.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: When we started advertising, it was really immediate, and we were able to onboard the first merchants right away, because that was a very immediate need of the market.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, how can I accept payments from Brazil immediately, right now?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that was our very problem.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, connect to us, you sign a contract, you're gonna accept payment methods in Brazil.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Everything that's local, like a domestic company, without the need for a local entity.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna pay you in your home country with one-wire transfer, unified reporting.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's how we started in Brazil.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Back in 2012, we saw that other countries have similar problems, so we grew from there.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's dive in and let's talk about the company.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So tell the audience exactly what e-Banks does.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: EBanks 2026, we are the best payments company in emerging markets for global merchants.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well that means we process payments for merchants in Latin America and Africa and Asia for global merchants that are expanding to 50 to 100 countries at the same time.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: But a unified solution doesn't work that well.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes the merchants they start with one acquire in the US, they're connected to something like, I don't know, Stripe or Adian in the US or another company.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: And when they get to emerging markets and they want to expand fast, that is not enough because they need local capabilities.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: They need to accept the local payment methods like PIX in Brazil, like Reb and Colombia, like Oxla in Mexico, like Fore in Egypt.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: They need to connect to these payment methods.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: And also card acquiring is very different in many of the markets.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: Although Visa and MasterCard did a great job unifying the global footprint, there are specific capabilities in the countries that are not available through international acquiring.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: By connecting with e-banks, these merchants enable things like installments, local brands.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not only Visa and MasterCard.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like 50% of the market in Nigeria is Verve, which is a local brand.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's not Visa MasterCard.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing like Troy in Turkey and many other brands.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: We enable the merchants to unlock 100% of the domestic market without the need to have a full local presence.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because, of course, the resources on the merchants are limited.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: We are kind of their payments operations in emerging markets.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: So we're currently operating in 25 processing markets.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: And our commercial and partnership teams are mostly in the US, in Europe, and in China, because that's where the big global expanders are.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so obviously you're focused on large merchants who are growing internationally.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Are there like certain verticals, or is it really any large merchant that just wants to expand?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: We work with mainstream merchants, and the focus, there are a few big verticals.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: One of them is retail, the ones like Amazon from the US or large Chinese marketplaces that are expanding to all over the world fast.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: Those are typical clients.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like streaming merchants, be it music streaming or video content in general, advertising.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the big tech companies in the US are customers of e-banks.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: And travel is also a very important vertical because not only the OTAs, but also the airlines, when you are selling a route from, for example, Brazil to Turkey, you need the Brazilians to be able to pay with their local installments or their picks.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: And these large tickets are a very good fit because in Brazil, for example, 70% of the OTA purchases are done in installments.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're just doing like vanilla international acquiring, you're not unlocking that portion of users that need the installments capability to have more purchase power.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say is the biggest challenge that your company is solving for your customers right now?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: It is really market-rich because when a merchant comes to e-banks, they have a business case to expand inside a country, and they need the users to be able to pay.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: So there is an efficiency play.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they want to accept more, to increase authorization rates, but where we stand is more than that, is reach itself, because without e-banks, they cannot reach the market.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's not improving the authorization rate, which we do from five to ten percentage point, is really massive because it's a different model.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's not only that we work on that, that's a primary job, improving authorization rate, but it's just a different model.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: And market reach, because consumers in Brazil, they want to pay with PIX.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Consumers in Nigeria want to pay with VERV.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Consumers in South Africa, they may want to pay with pay by bank.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: One example is I keep on repeating PIX because it's such a great example.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: And new gaming merchants that expand to Brazil, they get like 70, 80% of their share of payments paid through PIX, which is an alternative payment method, an APM.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: So if they were doing just cards, they would not be reaching the market completely.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: And this is interesting because it's many times unlocking a new demographic.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: The young consumers, they want to pay with PIX because it's predictable, they know exactly what they're doing, the money that's leaving their account.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: There's no like settlements, the billing cycle, anything complicated, the effects, rate.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's just they know they're paying 53 highs.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's 53 highs that's coming out of their account.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: So the new generation has also different habits and they want to use the payment instrument that they're using.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of unlocking reach.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I would assume if e-banks didn't exist, these large merchants that wanted to expand to these regions of the world, they would either not set up different entities in all these places or they would just accept whatever the payment methods visa MasterCard, like you mentioned before.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the right assumption?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you didn't exist, that's what they would just have to do.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Broadly speaking, digital business would expand much slower.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: It would go much slower because for these Martians to expand, they would have a very limited reach and they would want to go to a country, they would have to establish the entity, get the local teams.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that is a setup for a large Martian.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: We know a new entity set up with all the infrastructure needs, all the team, all the accounting, finance, and business model, it's a project of two years to be up and running.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: And we've seen it and we support that as well.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: So many of our merchants have local entities.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we do the payments for the local entities and so on, because these merchants are many times very localized already.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: So we serve payment needs in emerging markets.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, that's a good take.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Global digital business would move much slower without e-banks.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what differentiates e-banks from your competitors out there?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's really our focus in emerging markets is probably the main one.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because when we compare ourselves to companies that are doing payments in more mature markets like Europe or the US, that's their focus and that's also their battleground.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's where they need to win.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: So the best resources, the biggest amount of investment, the best brains, the best talent, which is always limited, is going to be focused there because that's the main battleground.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And our main focus is here is emerging markets.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: You can rest assured that we have the best capabilities to process cards in the whole Latin America and alternative payment methods, and we have the best capabilities in Nigeria, in Egypt, in South Africa, and that's what we're building in Asia now, too.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's our full-time job.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Just enable in the best way using technology and great connections, great talent, emerging markets.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's what differentiates, and that ends up building a product that delivers a high quality experience in this market, similar to what they are using in developed markets.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we're proud of delivering.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's talk about the future a little bit.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you see the biggest growth opportunity for your segment of payments for e-banks overall?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: From a company perspective, the market is very big because it's cards, it's alternative payment methods, it's pay-ins, it's payouts.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: That is already a very big matrix.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: If we look at all the markets where we operate, it's a market of more than a trillion dollars.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: And more than that, these are markets that are growing faster, typically, than developed markets.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: So these are also called high growth markets.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: These are economies that are growing 15, 20, 25% a year on e-commerce.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Also, there's another index which is nice, which is as we work with these global expanders, these are the companies that are growing the fastest in the world.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: We want to be ready to support them wherever they need, because these companies are growing like crazy in a big scale.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: So in this index provides us sufficient challenges and opportunities to grow in the future.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we're very excited about our 2030 plan and growing.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: So in the end, continue on doing very well what we are doing, expanding to new markets, making sure that our platform is best of breed in the countries where we operate and serving our merchants.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: So continue on focusing on the core business, pay-in, payouts, APMs, and cards.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: So when you say payouts, are you talking more like B2B business-to-business payments?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's mostly merchants or global companies doing payouts, disbursements into the markets where we operate.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: It can be gig economy workers, marketplace sellers.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're selling something at the global marketplace and you're a seller and you're based in one of the regions where we operate, or you're a freelancer, or you're a software developer, maybe you're based in Argentina and you work for a company in Eastern Europe, and that company is doing disbursements of payroll to multiple countries.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's a similar infrastructure.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's a somewhat different client sometimes, different merchant, but it's the same infrastructure of payments, intake and outtake, and infrastructure of cross-border settlement.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when you take a step back and you look at the payments industry as a whole, what do you think are some of the biggest trends that are reshaping the industry?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: There are a few things that are happening.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: AI is all over the place.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Agentic payments is coming.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's going to come slower than AI itself, because delegating a payment to an agent, I think most of the use cases can benefit from infrastructure that's already in place.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: And the new frameworks are going to be used by leading edge use cases that are not really there yet.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: But that's going to happen.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: So that's going to happen soon.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one of the trends AI, agent e-commerce, and so on.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think stable coins is already happening, it's infrastructure.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: I see stable coins for cross-border, right?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: And more than stable coins, blockchain in general being used as infrastructure for international settlement, like USDC, USDT, now there's open USD and many initiatives.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: But more than that, the big players, consolidators using blockchain or private networks to do international settlement, I think that's where a lot of the volume is going to go.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: And other very important trend, maybe not as sexy in the cover of the magazine, but definitely playing a huge role is alternative payment methods and account to account.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: And we're seeing that growing hugely in all markets.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: So the share of e-commerce that's going to account to account.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: And it's different flavors.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's pay by bank, sometimes it's a payment method from a private network, sometimes it's something instituted by the government.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of volume is growing in these account-to-account payment methods.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, cards are growing, but account to account is growing in a very much faster way.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: I want to double-click on that account to account.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you see that growing because it's a more inexpensive way for merchants to receive payments, or what is pushing that account-to-account trend?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Financial inclusion played a big role.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Account to account is, in fact, in most of the countries, you can use a bank account or you can use a lightweight payments account, which is a wallet.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: And access to those kinds of accounts is very easy.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't need credit.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Financially, I think the pandemic accelerated that financial inclusion in all the markets.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: That is one very special aspect of it.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's easily accessible.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Then there are other factors like one is cost.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: There is a competitive debate between account-to-account and the card schemes.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's healthy for the market, for merchants and consumers.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: And whoever is in between needs to understand the best dynamic to navigate that.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: And in the other case, these are local payment methods.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: And the experience is very local and native to the users and predictable.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: So they know exactly what is happening.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think cards are a very convenient mechanism, but sometimes there's some unpredictability around the framework, be it on childbacks or settlements or FX or even risk and fraud, right?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: The users don't feel super comfortable on it, and they may want to choose an account-to-account payment method, which is something that they know what's going to happen.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's very predictable.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: So there are all these factors that are probably playing in favor of account-to-account payment methods.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a couple of final questions.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about your career, and maybe if you could go back and give yourself advice at the start of your career, what advice would that be?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good one.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Advice for myself in the past.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think believing that we can do big things, that the world is there waiting to be explored.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Don't limit yourself in your dreams and your aspirations.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's something throughout my career I learned that we can be ambitious in a good way.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I admire a lot of the people that have achieved great things.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems that it's just because they believed.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: They believed and they were energetic and persistent enough to pursue that path.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I think this is an advice that I would reinforce to my younger self, maybe.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's great advice for everybody, and not just in payments, but in everyone's career and life.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate you sharing that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's wrap up with one final question.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: So folks out there listening to this show may not know a lot about eBanks or they may know everything about it.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: But what would be the one thing you would want them to take away from this conversation?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Come to know us a little bit.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: I think the world, especially for the US audience and in Europe, come to visit our website, visit my LinkedIn profile, understand a bit of what we do because the world out there in international markets is moving fast and it's very interesting.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's incredibly diverse.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: So great talent.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, e-banks, we want to be seen as a great force, but there are many great companies working in this space, and they're expanding and growing fast.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: So this is a fantastic market.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: International payments, cross-borders, markets that are outside of the typical ones like US, Europe, Japan.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Great things are happening.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I would incentivize the folks to come follow us, investigate more about these markets because it's a great topic.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Joel, I think that's a great way to wrap up the show.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to thank you so much for being here.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I know your time is very valuable and you're very busy.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for being on the show.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it was a pleasure.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Greg.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And to all you listeners out there, I thank you for your time as well.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And until the next story.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in Payments podcast.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you visit our website at leadersinpayments.com, where you can subscribe to the show and where you'll find our show notes.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed listening, please share on your social channels as well.